Refuge for the Scarcely Socialised
It was a stormy day in June when the heavens broke and a season's worth of water crashed down in a single hour. Dressed in my finest poseur outfit–black pants and a black shirt–I went to OCCII’s Night at the Mausoleum.
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Earlier that week I had met with gothwave DJ, artist, and performer Camy Huot. I entered her rickety anti-kraak apartment in Osdorp during the peak of the heatwave. The second I sat down, she shoved a cheese board under my nose, asked if I wanted a beer, and poured herself a verre à vin. I immediately asked her how she looks at the goth/punk scene, and where she places herself within it. She explained to me that darkwave, goth rock, and coldwave are mediums that carry the energy that is punk, but are still able to convey some message of their own. Her music is fuelled by introspective doubts about herself and the state of the world. The message, put succinctly, is that it's okay to be a sad punk. She went on to explain that in the punk genre, it's normal to have to keep up a strong face, especially as a woman, arguing that goth instead leaves room for the emotional and the morose. I was immediately reminded of the surge of interest in the female rage punk genre riot grrrl, strengthened by the newcomer queercore, which keeps a more encompassing umbrella of marginalisation. Both descriptors are viewed as scenes rather than simply as music genres, and their sound, presence, and style are unmistakably punk, but put more emphasis on society's concepts of gender roles and exclusivism, as a response to feelings of marginalisation within traditionally harsh, male punk spaces.
Earlier this year, she was invited to collaborate on a collective album produced by PLATO: Girls to the Front. The album was recorded in celebration of International Women's Day and included a selection of evocative examples of the riot grrrl and queercore scenes. Several suggestive bands are present; CLITTEBAND with Het Mooiste Meisje and Naaimachine's Geachte Mannen are there. Adding Camy Huot’s overall darker and more introspective style to the mix wouldn't be an obvious choice to me. PLATO records later told Camy that her music is ‘a bit sad’ and that she had something more ‘punky’. It seems obtuse to me to ask Camy to join the girls to the front collective without being aware of the music and atmosphere she would bring to the table.
To Camy, this forced show of strength, constantly proving that girls can be tough and mosh, is exhausting. She wants to show that being melancholic, depressed, and alone in your room is okay. Most importantly, it doesn't have to mean that you're not a feminist. Camy argues that having to keep up a strong façade in the name of feminism is counterintuitive, and it doesn't make her feel empowered. Moreover, she mentions that the mandatory dressing of empowerment can even have adverse effects on mental health. This perspective is partially inspired by Camy’s struggle with endometriosis, which she describes as cramps so painful they could be compared to the experience of giving birth. The drug normally administered in hospitals for endometriosis is amyl nitrite, which is known vernacularly as poppers. So, naturally, Camy would sniff poppers backstage before a gig to perform. Poppers were originally popularised in the 1980s and were heavily associated with the goth scene as well, making for a morbid sort of serendipity. "Sometimes I am just a crying little baby." Sometimes, it can feel like you're not allowed to feel weakness.
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But how is this embrace of weakness tied to the Germanic tribes from the 4th century, and why is it now associated with mascara and fishnets? The term ‘gothic’ was initially used to describe 12th-century art and architecture. It referred to the Germanic tribes responsible for the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Italian writers saw them as barbaric, and the term Gothic was initially used derogatorily. Until the 18th century, when a new wave of dark romantic literature emerged and Horace Walpole published his nightmarish ghost novel, The Castle of Otranto, A Gothic Story. Gothic and dark romanticist literature paved the way for the youth of two centuries years later to find a home and today we see the same in the obsession with the macabre, existentialism of death, and dark atmospheres.
One of the first times the word goth popped up in media to describe the macabre subculture is in the Sounds article, The Face of Punk Gothique, written by Steve Keaton. Steve Abbot–UK Decay frontman–describes their music as Punk Gothique:
"The Metro is deserted. Turnstiles gleam silver in the artificial light and eerie mechanical cries echo through the foreign silence [..]."
"Above the small winding streets are equally desolate, only empty MacDonald's cartons brave the drizzle blown along past the shuttered tea-shops by a weak breeze. [..]"
"Could this be the coming of Punk Gothique? With Bauhaus flying in on similar wings could it be the next big thing?"
Goth in the 1980s was the safe haven for the melancholic youth. Goth culture challenged gender expectations: men wore eyeliner; women, no longer constrained by gender norms, refused the notion of passive femininity, experimenting with queer and nonmonogamous relationships. Androgynous men and hypersexualized women in corsets, fishnets and short skirts.
But in order to define the goths, we have to talk about the music. Goth rock is a branch of post-punk that emerged in the late 1970s, headed by bands such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, The Cure, and Joy Division, which were heralded as the avant-garde pioneers of the genre. Compared to the more eclectic post-punk, a darker tone was taken to the sound, and everything acquired a dramatic flair. High reverb and delay effects were common, as well as the use of electronic instruments like keyboards and drum machines. Like goth culture and gothic literature, themes of darker romanticism, pessimism and existentialist motives were rampant. Parallel darkwave emerged in the United Kingdom, blending the existing gothic atmospheres but placing a heavier emphasis on electronic instruments. Further spreading out to Europe, the use of synths played a central role in the emergence of coldwave. Inspired by the dread of the Cold War and of financial instability, the use of cheap synths and recording devices was popularized, giving coldwave a stronger DIY ethos and lo-fi edge than goth rock. Aesthetically similar but more detached and emotionless, almost metallic. Later, darkwave left its punk roots behind and started incorporating neoclassical and dark ambient influences, which gained some traction in the 1990s. Lingua Ignota's Sinner Get Ready from 2021 is a beautiful example of this scene, and I highly recommend that each reader give it a try.
The goth scene has been around; offshoots exist from mall goths, cybergoths, and now, almost 50 years after the emergence of the first goths, we have the gooner goths. Not gooning themselves, of course, but catering to the gooners. YouTuber Harland Spinks, in his talking-head video essay Monoculture Heat Death, argues that contemporary e-girls and capitalists have taken the most marketable aspects of the subculture and appropriated it for market value. What was once about challenging gender norms and rejecting societal standards of passive femininity and conventional beauty standards has become a dark sewage of its most profitable parts, regurgitated and retched out as the sexual fantasies of a 'big titty goth gf.'
At the dawn of the twentieth century, subcultures were defined as a way to identify defiance and address issues among the youth. Many grey-haired men concluded that the 'youngsters' of the time were insufficiently adapting to their surroundings and were unable to inherit the standards and trends of the older generations. Instead, subcultures provided social functions in the form of refuge for the scarcely socialised segments of society. Subcultures support the experimentation and deconstruction of normative behaviour, such as sexuality and gender norms. In the academic heliosphere, subcultures are defined by three things. Kire Sharlamanov and Katerina Mitevska Petrusheva, in The Evolution of Youth Lifestyles from Subcultures to Scenes, describe it as:
"Insiders who are active members of the subculture. They organise events, protests, and are in active communication with other members of the subculture.” (e.g., the goths)
“Consumers, who are passive, do not shape the subculture, but follow it and consider it a significant part of their own existence.“ (e.g., the poseurs)
“Outsiders, who are not present on the scene, see the subculture as a fashion trend, but do not pay much attention to the ideology that comes with it, to the social norms that it tries to impose." (e.g., me)
During the 1990s, however, the term ‘subculture’ seemed increasingly outdated, as it couldn't encompass what it was trying to describe. What emerged was the post-subculture theory. Post-subculture theory places a higher emphasis on individual agency in participation in the subculture; we've entered the post-poseur era of subcultures. The breakdown of outdated subculture theory was first noted by Steve Redhead by observing British rave culture. Subcultures blended and dissolved on the dance floors of raves, strengthened by the influence of an increasing amount of free time for young people and, of course, the Internet. The dance crowds became mixed; people of different classes, races and genders let loose on the dance floor, and subcultural style became more constituted on homogenised consumption. The Internet and its consequential globalization served as further fuel on the fire. Any niche you might have can be now found online through micro-fragmented subcultures, where you are easily in contact with people who share your hyper-specific interests.
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Coming back to the goths of the 21st century, Night at the Mausoleum in OCCII showed me an uninspired version of goth music. The bands that performed were a flat imitation of the names that, in turn, inspired them, the ones who performed fifty years ago, in dingy, smokey basements similar to OCCII. The Goth-revival-renaissance. Every act looked and sounded similar, and I felt like everybody was afraid of innovating themselves; the parasol of goth genres has become regressive, the same sound and sentiment as half a century ago.
However, the community values seem intact. Perhaps this should be seen as a more original sense of goth culture, a reaction to commodification, a conservative resistance to keep the traditions alive. I understand that the blending and progression of subcultures is necessary and inevitable, at the same time I hate to see stagnation. However, the choice is easily made when progress means internet goons drooling over pacified ‘breedable’ submissive women.
However, there was one person who was doing something that felt fresh: Camy Huot. With her solo act, she gives hope for the future of goths. In her act she combines the melancholic influences of goth culture with the bravado of rave and DIY punk. Alone behind her deck, she mixed tracks and yelled in the microphone, constantly in movement, through her, the music turned into something danceable, recalcitrant while remaining introspective. To me, this shows a progressive goth, pushing this commodified goth subculture in a new direction by adding the post-subcultural rave. A necromancer, clad in a flowing dark cloak, she raises the graveyard youth from the dead, forcing them to dance to her will.